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CPT expects hiring binge

21-Apr-2015 08:10 EDT

Left to right are Richard Folkson, Andy Dickinson, Nick Pascoe, Tim Spearman, Ali Naini, and Martin Foster at the official opening of CPT's new Coventry engineering technical center in March 2015. They are standing next to the ADEPT (Advanced Diesel-Electric Powertrain) technology demonstrator. The ADEPT consortium includes Ricardo, CPT, EALABC, Faurecia Emissions Control Technologies, Ford, and the University of Nottingham.

Controlled Power Technologies (CPT) could triple its current 50-person workforce as its portfolio of advanced technologies edge closer to commercialization reality.

“There’s never been so much change going on in the automotive industry, and that means that the whole industry needs (more) engineers,” Nick Pascoe, Chief Executive Officer of UK-based CPT, said during an Automotive Engineering interview in advance of the 2015 SAE World Congress in Detroit.

CPT’s engineering team is working to bring its electric supercharger COBRA (Controlled Boosting for Rapid response Applications), its advanced motor-generator SpeedStart, and its TIGERS turbine integrated gas energy recovery system to the mass market.

“We need to be a team of 150 in about 18 months to two years,” said Pascoe, who expects a large share of CPT's future hires to be application engineers and control system developers. Pascoe's hiring forecast is partially based on expected technology needs and production partnerships.

CPT’s current roster includes veteran engineers and recent college graduates. “It’s even better for us if they’ve participated in Formula SAE because that means they’ve worked on cars. There are a lot of engineers out there who have never worked on a car. They’ve never maintained a car as you would have done 20 or 30 years ago, so they don’t have the basic practical skills,” said Pascoe.

Internships at CPT have led to permanent employment at the company with subsidiaries in Germany and the U.S.

“We’re just reaping the first benefits of that by hiring two of the guys who were interns with us,” said Pascoe. “An internship is the best form of interview that you can have.” CPT interns are actively involved in running part of a program. “So they have real responsibilities,” said Pascoe.

As the man in charge of a company created in 2007 by the acquisition of Visteon’s UK-based advanced powertrain development activities, Pascoe is steering the company’s technologies toward production applications.

“I’m still excited by technology,” said Pascoe, who has an MBA from Cranfield University and a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Aston University. “But I also have investors who don’t want to hear just the excitement about technology. They want to know how it’s going to be commercialized.”

In December 2011, CPT sold its Variable Torque Enhancement System electric supercharger business to Valeo. CPT is now focused on bringing its COBRA, SpeedStart, and TIGERS technologies to mass market readiness.

“This really is a fun time to be an engineer,” said Pascoe, “The expectations have never been higher.”